Hey! It occurred to me over the weekend that (3 years on) I hadn't looked in my dad's camera drawer to see what was there. I knew he'd never had an SLR so hadn't thought much about it. How wrong I was!

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Also an equally unused-looking 24/2.8 and a 20-40/2.8 on an Auto 110. The drawer was in my parents' sitting room, so they all seem unfungused or anything.

Here's the 70 in its native home:

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There were dead batteries and dead battery leakage in the camera but I cleaned that out and stuck some new batteries in. A red light now comes on in the viewfinder if you point into darkness so it seems good to go. Adapter ordered. And film, which now seems to be being made again. I had been wondering about a more portable film system than an SLR, plus I might as well take advantage of the full aperture range.

The build quality (and, given the Lilliputian size, ergonomics) of the Pentax 110 stuff seems exemplary. The focussing ring of the 70 is, uh, truly buttery. The 20-40 zoom is at its shortest at 40 and you just pull it straight out to widen. The 24/2.8 is teeny, but the focussing ring is surprisingly manageable. Certainly compared to the p*sstake on the almost equally little lens of a Minox (edit - Rollei) Se also in the drawer.

The build quality (and, given the Lilliputian size, ergonomics) of the Pentax 110 stuff seems exemplary. The focussing ring of the 70 is, uh, truly buttery. The 20-40 zoom is at its shortest at 40 and you just pull it straight out to widen. The 24/2.8 is teeny, but the focussing ring is surprisingly manageable.

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after a bit of use I'd say that for me:

24 is indeed amazingly small but now that there are other options at reasonable prices I'd not bother with it

edit: rereading your article - because of the half-frame film size the 70/2.8 is actually a 70/2.8 on m43, and not an as it were adapted SLR size 140/2.8?

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I'm not sure what this means ... but taking a stab, the 70mm is a 70mm ... it will look exactly like any other 70mm fitted to an m43 camera in terms of how much "telephoto" effect there is. So it will look similar in many ways to a 140mm on a full frame camera if that's what you're saying

Blimey. Makes the 20 end of the 20-40 seem quite intriguing.

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keeping in mind that 20mm on a m43 camera is essentially a similar view to 40mm on a 35mm (or so called Full Frame) camera. Making the 20 - 40 somewhat less wide and less telephoto than the very well priced native 14-42mm zoom that has autofocus an aperture and has OIS

again I'm not sure what you mean, the best thing for sanity is to consider equivalence ONLY when comparing images captured with different frame sizes.

A 14mm lens (such as a Canon FD lens designed for filmNew FD14mm f/2.8L - Canon Camera Museum) will render the same image when mounted on a m43 camera as a native 14mm does. Its just that when mounted on a 35mm camera its covering a larger area so the full captured image is wider because the sensor is wider.

SO when reading focal length just read focal length.

Equivalence is only useful when comparing across sensors or formats.

For instance my 4x5 cameras 90mm lens is about the same angle of view as that of my FullFrame's 28mm and my m43rds 14mm

In this post you can see that I compare 4 50mm lenses. One is the Pentax 110 50mm lens, it is indistinguishable which was which 50mm lens.

the Pentax-110 70mm is a bit tricky to use when I wish to have just a bit more DOF but then again it forces me to think carefully where the main subject is and how to isolate it and create the right bokeh. Not a lens for all purposes but I love how portable it is
Here some images where I struggled to create decent sharpness on the bits I wanted and have the rest soft
Details of a shipwreck{}
Shipwreck decay_c by gnarlydog, on Flickr

over the weekend I debated if I should take the (relatively) bulky 70mm with me on a backpacking trip. I don't regret doing it as the lens gave me a unique perspective on isolation of the subject to create a depth that I missed on previous trips

Right on the edge of "too close for comfort" having just the 70mm lens to distance myself from this dangerous snake. It was on overcast day that made it more dormant than active to be able to take an image before is scurried away. Minimal crop, almost minimum focus distance

it have been procrastinating this project for a while as I knew it will not be easy.
But today it's raining and I am not that keen to go photograph in the rain...
I have the 4 lenses from the Pentax-110 system: 70, 50, 24, and 18.
I am interested in possibly gaining a bit of depth of field with the 70mm and the 50mm.
I bought a broken Pentax-110 body and harvested just the lens mount and corresponding plate. There was a bunch of little levers and cams; most of them got discarded but I kept a few small ones.
The brass plate just behind the lens contains what it looks like a 2 blade iris, two C shaped thin blades.
There were also several pins that were protruding preventing me from flush mount that plate onto a C-mount lens adapter for Micro 4/3. I cut those pins away.
I was left with just the iris and the front flange that would take the lens.

The iris has a little pin that moves in a circular way for about 20 degrees. Moving that pin opens/closes the aperture.
I used a little thin lever (left over from the camera disassemble) and drilled a tiny hole on the surface of the C-mount to create a pivot point. The lever had to be bent a bit to reach the iris pivot point. I glued the brass plate to C-mount adapter with epoxy glue (JB Weld).

Initially I thought to go ghetto and just forego the lever and simply bump the iris: if I tapped horizontally the iris would open, vertically and the iris would close.
It was however not a very controlled operation and I am sure I would be removing the lens to see how far the open/close the aperture would be.

To finish the project, all I have to do now is close the gap around C-mount and Pentax-110 mount with epoxy putty (from auto parts store) and make it pretty with the plastic cover that was originally on the Pentax-110 camera.

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